Well...wow.
This last 365 days were filled with joy, beyond my comprehension. If I turned it to a song it would be lovely.
This last period of time, it was precious, it was mine, and I loved it.
However, in the midst of all the wonder, someone I loved (read: still love) very much, had lived with, laughed with, and experienced life with, just all of the sudden wasn't here anymore.
In an instant, her life here on earth ended, and her eternal life began. The day paid no mind to her husband's grief, or her four month old daughter's journey absent her mommy, the day paid no mind, and on May 11th, that brutal, selfish day, my heart wanted something else, it just wanted life to be different, it wanted everything to change, but as much as I miss her, I can't help but shake my head at the attitude that enveloped me in the days that followed May 11th, and my very temporal desire for something else.
The same shaking of my head occurs when I cringe at my lack of physical abilities, on days when I ache to climb a high rock, run a marathon, do a string of cartwheels down a hallway, when I desire to run breathlessly through hills, when I yearn for something different, I end the day shaking my head.
My life is full of rich lessons, and as much as suffering has been a part of it, I am grateful for the opportunity to see things from a high perspective while sitting on the ground.
Grateful am I that the God of life has chosen to give His life for me.
Today is an interesting day, and one I cherish, it is a day where what I really want is right in front of me. Not something else, and not something different, just something new.
This is my desire every day, to be changed from glory to glory, to be made new. I'm not saying we should never want things to change, or that we'll never grieve the way things are, but, God is a God of redemption, and He works in the business of taking what is and making it new, not necessarily changing it entirely. For this reason, circumstances don't define us, and they never will.
Today, I'm thrilled. I've watched one of my dearest friends piece her marriage back together, watched another friend fight to do the same, seen friends welcome babies, and very soon, I'll throw a party for a dear heart who will soon join her heart to another.
My clean clothes smell like Salvadorian coffee, and my heart rejoices. Tomorrow, I'll board a plane, land, be greeted by precious people, spend some time with a few pieces of chalk, and then with a couple of text books. Tuesday morning, semester number four begins.
Four semesters, on my way to being a voice for the trafficked, the broken, the motherless, the fatherless, the voiceless, on my way to being an instrument of something new. Something new. The hallways will buzz, Robertson Hall will be full, the couches will contain people on phones and laptops, heavy textbooks will abound, and behind every creak of a textbook's spine, every whisper in a hallway, every rapid hug, or speedy hello, and every intentional investment of time and resources, there is a fervent hope of something new...not something else, not something different, no, no, something new.
If we wanted something else, something different, well, we wouldn't be there, in Robertson Hall, with the heavy textbooks and the hit the ground running willing brutality of law school. ;) No, we're in pursuit of sprinkling the world with something new. :)
What a gift it is to know we were created to do just that. We were created by the One who makes all things new, all things, and thus, we must do our best to take that which is broken, and make it as new as it can be.
Thanks and Praise for all things new.
Happy New Year all!
II Corinthians 5:17
Courtney
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